A New Law Attempts To Roll Back The Divorce Revolution

July 13, 1997|By Stephen Chapman.

Starting Aug. 15, couples applying for marriage licenses in Louisiana will be asked a question: Do you want to commit to this marriage till death do you part, or would you rather be free to bail out the first time your mate leaves the cap off the toothpaste?

Everyone complains about the high divorce rate in America, but no one seems to think anything can be done about it. We're about to find out. Many experts blame "no-fault" divorce laws enacted in the 1960s and '70s for making it too easy to dissolve matrimony. So the Louisiana legislature, heeding this criticism, decided to make a change. It didn't abolish no-fault divorce. It did something far more subversive: It offered another choice.

The new option is called "covenant marriage," and it imposes requirements that may seem unbearably confining to the heirs of the sexual revolution. In fact, they are pretty modest. Couples who prefer covenant marriage would have to undergo counseling beforehand about the nature and obligations of their union. They would also have to agree to get additional counseling if serious problems arise afterward.

The state's current law says that anyone who dumps a spouse this afternoon can be free of all entanglements in plenty of time to find a date for next Valentine's Day. Under the new regime, the wait would be extended from 180 days to two years. Immediate divorce, however, would still be available to someone whose spouse commits adultery, domestic violence, child abuse or a felony that leads to imprisonment. No one with a covenant marriage will be forced to stay with a dangerous husband or wife.

What good will the change do? It will have a sobering effect on some love-struck people, forcing them to ask themselves and discuss with each other what sort of union they want--and whether both partners are ready for it. "When a man says he wants a no-fault marriage and a woman says she wants a covenant marriage, that's going to raise some red flags," says State Rep. Tony Perkins, who sponsored the measure. "She's going to say, `What? You're not willing to have a lifelong commitment to me?' "

Some people, regrettably, will feel a sudden onset of cold in their lower extremities. But couples who are not ready for permanent obligations are better off discovering that before the wedding than after.

The new alternative will also make it harder to escape a marriage, thus inducing some couples to find ways to make theirs work instead of giving up too easily. A spouse who is eager to get out will have to first submit to counseling, which in some cases is bound to help. His or her jets may also be cooled by the prospect of a two-year wait. The new option will prevent some bad marriages and save some salvageable ones, both of which will appreciably reduce the wreckage of broken homes.

Divorce is sometimes the only sensible route, but it shouldn't be the outcome of half of all marriages, as it is now. The high divorce rate, after all, has serious human consequences for innocent parties. Children whose parents divorce are more susceptible to delinquency, teen pregnancy, drug use, failure in school, poor health and poverty. Women generally suffer a substantial decline in living standards after divorcing.

Under laws allowing no-fault divorce, it is impossible to protect oneself against a faithless husband or wife. What the no-fault laws created, as journalist Maggie Gallagher writes in her 1996 book, "The Abolition of Marriage," is more accurately described as unilateral divorce, available on demand for any reason or no reason. "Today," she notes, "while it still takes two to marry, it takes only one to divorce."

The divorce revolution, she says, has caused a radical shift in power "from the spouse who wants to stay married, to the spouse who wants to leave, from the person who wants to commit, to the person who wants the right to revoke his or her commitments." In her view, we have gained the right to divorce but lost the right to marry in the true sense.

The Louisiana change would restore it, but the law can't be portrayed as a moralistic straitjacket inflicted on the unwilling. No one who wants to marry in the state has to choose covenant marriage. Those headed to the altar, however, may find themselves asking why anyone who is genuinely in love and at the brink of matrimony would want anything less. Gallagher predicts that over time, no-fault marriage will largely vanish because couples will spurn it.

And what about people who were married when no-fault marriage was the only option? Good news: The new law allows married couples to convert their easy-exit unions into more durable commitments. Come Aug. 15, there will be a lot of interesting conversations in Louisiana.